On Solo Days and Checking Things Off

Our second day in Colorado a few weeks ago started with -16 degree temperatures. -16.

Let’s just say skiing with everyone that would not have set me up for success. No way.

So I took a solo day in the town of Breckenridge. I bundled up and shopped along the darling Main Street, ducking into coffee shops when I got too cold. I found an fantastic noon yoga class and the teacher sent me to Amazing Grace for lunch, this sweet little all-natural eatery inside a yellow house.

One of my most prized possessions is my copy of 2001 Things to Do Before You Die. For 10 years, I have been checking things off. There are so many memories within its pages. Some are simple like “bake brownies” or “make a paper snowflake” and others, I specifically traveled to check them off like “Dance in the gazebo while on The Sound of Music tour in Salzburg” and “Contemplate beauty at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris”. Actually, items in the book crafted my itinerary for backpacking around Europe after I was done studying abroad. I was 20, I had this book and off I went.

For everything that has been checked off (“change your last name” was the most recent), there is still so much to do, to see, to experience. And I think that’s why this little book means so much to me and why I tucked it in my bag to Colorado. Sitting in that little yellow house next to an icy window in Breckenridge and flipping through the pages, it was impossible to remember the stories behind the check marks without scrolling my gaze toward the things I am excited to do next. Such is life, right? The past is always there but so is the current moving us forward.

Sparking my interest to check off this year:

Get your picture taken in a champagne tub in the Poconos

Make a thermos full of margaritas and watch the fireworks

Make homemade tortillas

Drive a bus

Risk saying no more often

One thing is for sure- I adore solo days in new towns and I am just as enthused about future adventures and what might be checked off while experiencing them as I was when I was given 2001 Things to Do Before You Die 10 Years Ago.